Box Score
The SUNY Oneonta baseball stayed alive in the NCAA Div. III New York Region Tournament by fighting off Castleton State in its second elimination game of the day Friday. Oneonta (31-12) defeated the Spartans 9-2 in the final game of day 3 after eliminating Keene State earlier in the day's first game.
Timely hitting and another strong pitching performance from a pair of southpaws got the Red Dragons the victory as they advance to play St. John Fisher Saturday afternoon at 1:00 p.m. Oneonta split its doubleheader with the Cardinals back in mid-April at St. John Fisher.
The winner of tomorrow's game will play Cortland in the championship game beginning at 5:00 p.m. The rival Red Dragons are 3-0 in the tournament and advanced into the championship with a win over St. John Fisher today by the score of 6-1. If Cortland wins the late game tomorrow, then they will be Regional champions. If they lose, there will be a final championship game played on Sunday beginning at 1:00 p.m.
The big inning for Oneonta tonight was the eighth inning where they broke open a 5-2 game with four runs in the inning. All four runs were scored with two outs in the inning. Senior #
Carmine Caputo (Mahopac/Mahopac)# got things started with a walk and went to second on an infield single by sophomore #
Kevin Knack (Ghent /Ichabod Crane)#. Senior #
Dan Randall (Salem/Salem)# then hit a double to deep right center to drive in both Caputo and Knack. Randall, who drove in three runs in the Red Dragons win versus Keene State, finished tonight's contest with a pair of doubles and three runs batted in.
Sophomore #Mike Center# exchanged spots with Randall as he doubled to left center field. Center scored two batters later on an RBI single to left field by freshman #
Mike Mascari (Syracuse/Westhill)#.
Oneonta took a 2-0 lead in the top of the fourth thanks to an RBI single off the bat of senior #
Scott Dubben (Roseboom/Cherry Valley Springfield)# and a sacrifice fly by classmate #
Steve Gauck (Clifton Park/Shenendehowa)#.
The Red Dragons added a single run in the fifth and two more in the sixth to maintain its lead after allowing single runs to Castleton in the bottom of the fourth and fifth innings. Oneonta's two runs in the sixth came with two outs and were both unearned. Freshman #
Bryan Marotta (Clifton Park/Shenendehowa)# drove in one run with an RBI single through the left side. The second run was knocked in by Caputo, who singled up the middle to drive in freshman #Mike DeCarr#, who had reached on a throwing error by the Spartans third baseman.
Sophomore #
Ken Smith (Ossining/Ossining)# pitched the first five innings allowing nine hits and two runs, one earned while recording two strikeouts. He earned the win to raise his record to 3-1.
Sophomore #Chris Smith# pitched the final four innings striking out four to earn his first save of the season.
